CENTRE FOR STRATEGIC AND CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH Perspectives Issue No. 1 November 2019 Pakistan’s Land-Centric Defence Calculus Needs Overhauling Author: Zaki Khalid* Key Points: • Since its independence from British rule in 1947, Pakistan’s national security apparatus has viewed India as a nemesis and persistent existential threat. • The years of counter-terrorism and counter insurgency operations carried out almost exclusively by Pakistan Army and its special forces, with the occasional support of Pakistan Air Force, kept its security matrix focused inland. • The Pakistan Army has exclusively dominated higher-level strategic planning (JSHQ) despite the changing world order after 9/11, whereas, India improvised both its land-air strike capabilities (Cold Start) and naval force capabilities (Maritime Manoeuvre from the Sea). • As Pakistan’s land and air forces were occupied in internal security operations within the mainland, India began to slowly but steadily lay out its influence network in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). • Indian security establishment views CPEC not through the geo-economic lens but from a purely geostrategic and military-centric perspective. Thus, any maritime project by Pakistan involving the Chinese is viewed as an attempt to validate India’s perceived ‘String of Pearls’ theory. Any misunderstanding in the Strait of Hormuz could lead to a full-blown conflict, thereby impacting commercial marine traffic toward Gwadar. • Countries along the IOR, excluding Pakistan, are shifting to a maritime-centric security calculus. For Pakistan to catch up with these realities, it is imperative that measures beyond development of sea-launched missiles be emplaced. Joint forces doctrines or policy directives, if any, should be revised to prioritise threats from the sea and maritime thinkers should be encouraged to provide overall strategic guidance for Pakistan Armed Forces’ direction in the coming 10 to 20 years. ince its independence from British rule in notoriety as the quintessential villain. Little wonder 1947, Pakistan’s national security apparatus that the doctrinal essence of Pakistan Armed Forces’ has viewed India as a nemesis and persistent operations is to maintain a credible defence force against existential threat. There is an undeterred a belligerent India in the land, air, and sea domains. Sconviction among the Pakistan Armed Forces on this core belief. India’s forced takeover of Jammu & Kashmir, Confronting India during the 1965 and 1971 wars Gurdaspur, and Hyderabad Deccan coupled with direct along with Kargil conflict at the dawn of the second involvement in supporting the Mukti Bahini to liberate millennium established leading relevance for land erstwhile East Pakistan has only strengthened its (primary) and air (secondary) forces within Pakistan. In a similar vein, the Pakistan Army’s overwhelming influence on national political discourse and leading * The writer is a freelance national security and strategic efforts for Soviet expulsion from Afghanistan during the affairs commentator based in Rawalpindi. 1 1980s overshadowed the symbolic vitality of Pakistan The context above suffices to explain the land-centric Air Force and Pakistan Navy, when viewed in hindsight. orientation of Pakistan’s geostrategic calculus. In actual, Pakistan had neither the opportunity nor the resources The post 9/11 global security milieu, which was to critically examine sea-based threats. As Pakistan’s unilaterally shaped by the United States (US), had once land and air forces were occupied in internal security again hyphenated Pakistan alongside Afghanistan, operations within the mainland, India began to slowly adding weight to the so-called ‘strategic depth’ policy. but steadily lay out its influence network in the Indian Pakistan Army, for its part, believed that the primary Ocean Region (IOR); the release of Indian Maritime threats to the homeland originated from ground-based Doctrine (2004) was followed by operationalisation actors operating from the western and eastern borders. of annual Theatre Level Readiness and Operational This mind set has been prevalent without interruption Exercise (TROPEX) in 2005. During TROPEX-2007, the or revision. A similar paradigm has prevailed in the Indian Navy validated its own maritime version of Cold Pakistan Air Force; the undetected intrusion into Start dubbed as the ‘Maritime Maneuver from the Sea’ Pakistani airspace by the US Special Operations forces to influence air-land battles and “deliver the punch” in in 2011 from the western border and Indian Air Force’s a highly swift and protracted conflict environment.3 In aggressive violation of Pakistani airspace in early the same year, publication of India’s Maritime Military 2019 from the east reinforce the assertion that hostile Strategy (2007) provided a 15-year roadmap to ensure ground-based platforms are the enablers of aggressive that fast-changing geopolitical, geo-economic and force posturing. technological developments cannot adversely impact core maritime national interests. Fundamentally, the The emergence and gradual disclosure of India’s strategy enunciated that the maritime orientation of proactive operations doctrine, dubbed as the ‘Cold human activities (as also military power projection) Start,’ validated Pakistan’s concerns.1 Unveiled in 2004 would increase ‘exponentially’ (rightly so). More by then Indian Army leadership, this Cold Start doctrine interestingly, it highlighted the foresight of Indian enables India to carry out swift incursions into Pakistani maritime thinkers in the following words: territory through integrated operations with the Indian Air Force. It marked a fundamental shift away from ’Pakistan’s attempts to force a military solution in the traditionalist Sundarji doctrine having defensive Kashmir pulled the Indian Army and the Indian Air contours.2 Force (IAF) into a war to “‘defend territory”. This rationale was to dominate Indian Military thinking for Understanding the geostrategic environment of the next half century. Fortunately, territorial defence Pakistan at this time is paramount before Pakistan’s failed to distract any of India’s early maritime thinkers, future strategic planning trajectories can be properly and for that succeeding generations should be grateful. understood. The mounting pressure from the US Maritime thinking continued to cast its net wider, and international community on Pakistan to assist in possibly back to earlier eras when colonial trade had not eradicating purported terror hotbeds in neighbouring distorted the Indian Ocean maritime picture. Despite the Afghanistan including some pockets on its own soil, permanence of ‘territorial defence’ in the national mind had incentivised modernisation of land and air forces set, the Indian Navy refused to lose hope and believed for precision strikes in targeted areas, mostly in the that a country as large and diverse as India would one north-west. With India posturing more confidently out day realize that it has substantial maritime interests.’ of political advantage under the US umbrella, the Cold Start reinforced Pakistan’s belief that India would use Subsequently, the creation of the Indian Ocean Naval its conventional might along its eastern border while its Symposium (2008) gave India significant stakes to own troops are occupied along the western side. This is influence the discourse around key regional maritime when the decision to develop Tactical Nuclear Weapons issues, and also boost its naval diplomatic integrity in was taken as the last resort against a conventionally- the western seaboard. Indian Navy’s Maritime Doctrine superior Indian military. In addition, the years of (2009) marked a visible shift to outward-looking counter-terrorism and counter insurgency operations thinking, projecting a role away from merely aiding land carried out almost exclusively by Pakistan Army and its and air forces to becoming the harbinger and guarantor 4 special forces, with the occasional support of Pakistan of great power status for India. These indications were Air Force, kept its security matrix focused inland. affirmed by then Congress leadership in 2011 and 2013 when they referred to Indian Navy as a ‘net security 1 Walter C. Ladwig III, “A Cold Start For Hot Wars? The Indian provider,’ in the IOR. The political leadership under BJP Army’s New Limited War Doctrine”, Quarterly Journal: International seems to have carried forward this belief as evident in Security, 32, no. 3 (2007): 158-190, https://www.belfercenter.org/ 3 Zee News, “Indian Navy Validates New Maritime Warfare Doctrine”, publication/cold-start-hot-wars-indian-armys-new-limited-war- February 27, 2007. doctrine. 4 Iskander Rehman, “India’s Asrpirtional Naval Doctrine”, 2 Ali Ahmed, “The Logic of the ‘Sundarji Doctrine’,” Institute of Peace Carnegie Endowment Fund for International Peace, https:// and Conflict Studies, last modified December 22, 2009,https://ipcs. carnegieendowment.org/files/Indias_Aspirational_Naval_Doctrine. org/comm_select.php?articleNo=3029. pdf 2 the Maritime Security Strategy (2015).5 The June 2019 Indo-Pacific Strategy Report claims that India and the US share a ’common outlook‘ on In early 2018, former US Defence Secretary James Mattis the region, underpinned by defence, economic and formally renamed Pacific Command (USPACOM) to diplomatic agendas.7 The November 2019 Free and Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) to highlight the Open Indo-Pacific Report acknowledges that ASEAN growing inter-connectedness among Indian and Pacific forms